MOSSES, like ferns, are unsung heroes. Quiet and unassuming, they soften difficult corners and provide a soothing air of permanence. Cracks, crevices, and tree bark are all perfect microclimates for the spores to settle, but they can be persuaded to live happily under shrubs or roses, intermingled with other creeping groundcover and as part of a shady woodland border. They don’t always need grooming to be gorgeous. Kazuyuki Ishihara’s Chelsea creations are immaculate, but it was the back wall of his Green Switch garden that sang out in 2019: a joyful, messy waterfall of mosses tumbling with hazel saplings, polypody ferns, and Lamprocapnos spectabilis Alba. No tweezers required.
At Windy Hall, on the shores of Lake Windermere, scientists David Kinsman and Diane Hewitt excel at naturalistic mossy beauty. They arrived in 1973 to find their steeply sloping four acres smothered with rubbish that had to be borrowed of the site. The resulting compacted path, curving up between native birch and cherry trees behind the house, then became a flourishing moss garden. Existing mounds of Polytrichum formosum were encouraged to spread and the ground was kept clear of competition. Canopies were lifted to emphasize the contrast between the smooth trunk and rumpled emerald carpet. ‘We let it tell us how to manage it,’ says Diane, ‘we simply weed out a few foxgloves and keep ivy at bay.’
この記事は Country Life UK の February 12, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です ? サインイン
この記事は Country Life UK の February 12, 2020 版に掲載されています。
7 日間の Magzter GOLD 無料トライアルを開始して、何千もの厳選されたプレミアム ストーリー、8,500 以上の雑誌や新聞にアクセスしてください。
すでに購読者です? サインイン
Put some graphite in your pencil
Once used for daubing sheep, graphite went on to become as valuable as gold and wrote Keswick's place in history. Harry Pearson inhales that freshly sharpened-pencil smell
Dulce et decorum est
Michael Sandle is the Wilfred Owen of art, with his deeply felt sense of the futility of violence. John McEwen traces the career of this extraordinary artist ahead of his 88th birthday
Heaven is a place on earth
For the women of the Bloomsbury group, their country gardens were places of refuge, reflection and inspiration, as well as a means of keeping loved ones close by, discovers Deborah Nicholls-Lee
A haunt of ancient peace - The gardens at Iford Manor, near Bradford-on-Avon, Wiltshire The home of the Cartwright-Hignett family
After recent renovations, this masterpiece of Harold Peto's garden-making must be counted one of the finest gardens in England
It's the plants, stupid
I WON my first prize for gardening when I was nine years old at prep school. My grandmother was delighted-it was she who had sent me the seeds of godetia, eschscholtzia and Virginia stock that secured my victory.
Pretty as a picture
The proliferation of honey-coloured stone cottages is part of what makes the Cotswolds so beguiling. Here, we pick some of our favourites currently on the market
How golden was my valley
These four magnificent Cotswold properties enjoy splendid views of hill and dale
Mere moth or merveille du jour?
Moths might live in the shadows of their more flamboyant butterfly counterparts, but some have equally artistic names, thanks to a 'golden' group, discovers Peter Marren
The magnificent seven
The Mars Badminton Horse Trials, the oldest competition of its kind in the world, celebrates its 75th anniversary this weekend. Kate Green chooses seven heroic winners in its history
Angels in the house
Winged creatures, robed figures and celestial bodies are under threat in a rural church. Jo Caird speaks to the conservators working to save northern Europe's most complete Romanesque wall paintings